Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Polly Toynbee, either credulous or a twat

Remember the nosepegs? Remember the "vote Labour because they're better than the rest"? It was only a month and a half ago, but already our Polly, Guardian columnist and controversy-courter par excellance, is criticising the government that she encouraged others to vote for. Nice one, luv. (In fact, she probably started doing this the day after the election for all I know - I tend to try to avoid her usually mindless drivel.)

Some "highlights":

"Under a government committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, UK emissions have increased by 3% since 1997 - and were up 1.3% last year alone..."

So, does that count as another broken Labour promise, Polly? Or should we whack on another nosepeg and ignore it, because they're doing such sterling work in other areas - like the moronic bill outlawing criticising religions, the vastly expensive and pointless ID cards thing, the continuation of failing peacekeeping tactics in Iraq, the piss-poor execution of working family tax credits (which has forced one of my father's patients to sell their sodding house to pay the government back for an error which was not their fault), the freedom of speech exclusion zone around the Houses of Parliament, etc. etc. etc.?

And here's another telling admission:

"Our Kyoto targets will only be reached by the accident of the conversion from coal to gas before Labour's time - and now we are burning more coal again."

So, Polly, would that be the Tories who set up a reduction in pollution? The same Tories who laid the foundations for the (relatively) healthy economy of the last few years? The same Tories you urged everyone to vote against lest they introduce excessively totalitarian legislation (like - perhaps - ID, control orders, restriction of freedom of speech) or act against the interests of the poor (by - perhaps - giving them money to which they aren't entitled, not warning them, waiting for them to spend it and then demanding it be repaid)?